Why does the formatting change all by itself? HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Doctormom]

I do proposals for my boss in Word. Everysingle time he and I work on a
porposal, we get angry. The formatting changes from page to page. You hit the
space bar to add a space and it deletes letters, and doesn't add the space.
You set a margin and it changes for some headings and not for others. This is
so frustrating. You want to change the spelleing of a letter and it deletes
the whole word even when you select just that letter. We do not have a virus.
This is a computer company and they keep things running at optimum. I'm not
new to Word but I am beginning to really hate it now that I have to use it
for big documents. I cannot get the formatting to stick through the whole
doc. HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[DeanH]

You have several issues occuring.
1. See http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/WholeDocumentReformatted.htm to
understand why formatting usually goes awry.
2. Also see http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/stylesms/index.html for very
useful instruction on handling Styles.
3. Tools, Options, Edit, uncheck the "Overtype mode" box and maybe also the
"When selecting, automatically select entire word" to solve you editing
problems.
4. See http://word.mvps.org/faqs/formatting/WorkWithSections.htm to
understand what could be happening with your Headers/Footers/margins.
Hope this helps
DeanH

 

[Terry Farrell]

Some solutions in line. (But next time, please construct your post into a
logical series of questions and not just as one long rant.

I do proposals for my boss in Word. Everysingle time he and I work on a
porposal, we get angry. The formatting changes from page to page.

If you change the format of a style, you need to update the style for it to
change all instances of that style through the documetn.

You hit the

space bar to add a space and it deletes letters, and doesn't add the
space.

You have toggled on Overtype Mode - probably by accidentally hitting the
Insert key. You can see the state of the Overtype mode by looking at
OVERTYPE in the Status bar at the bottom of the page. Double-clicking on
Overtype will toggle the mode. You can also go into Tools, Options, Edit tab
and turn off the action of the Insert key.

You set a margin and it changes for some headings and not for others. This
is
so frustrating.

How are you changing the margins and what are you trying to achieve? Margins
work for whole sections, not just for a Heading. Do you mean you are trying
to change the INDENT of the heading? If so, you need to change the format of
the heading STYLE: then seelct the update styles option and it will change
all instances of that heading style through the documetn.


You want to change the spelleing of a letter and it deletes

the whole word even when you select just that letter.

I don't quite understand. You check the spelling using the spell checker and
it automatically replaces an incorrect spelling with the correct one you
select. But if you are correcting the spelling manually, one of many Word
options is to select WHOLE words (which makes life really easy for selecting
text). You can either toggle off this option (again under Tools, Options,
Edit tab) or you can hold the ALT key when selecting the one letter and it
overrides the automatic word selection.

We do not have a virus.

You probably don't have a virus: what you have is a lack of Word training or
experience. Please post questions here and we will do our best to help. But
try to help us to help you. It is usually best to create a separate postfor
each question.

And please let us know which version fo Word and which OS you are using and
also if they are fully patched up to date. We like to help you but we are